Encouraging new players

[Black Canyon]

After putting in over two weeks of work and travel, I have determined not only am I weak, I cannot hunt, fish, nor gather food at any respectable rate and can't even cook worth a damn. The only thing I am even skillful at is burying bodies, and of course, that made me ill.

Way to encourage a new player.

I noticed this post in another thread and even though the topic has been discussed some in the past, I think it's worth bringing up again. We already know that cantr is somewhat unique and clicks with certain kinds of gameplayers. However, we do attract them and lose them at a high rate of speed

I am interested in ideas that might result in changes that can help retain players who leave not because they aren't a good fit.... but because they are not having fun. Cantr will never be what some very popular games are, and we don't want it to be a carbon copy of other games. But I wonder if we might learn some things from some other games regarding hooking in new players who are trying to decide if this is worth their time.

I'm going to bring up the whole "fun factor" issue again. Is there enough in cantr for the new player who is totally unaware of any historical or sentimental value that the game holds for some of us older players? How do you have "fun" when you first get started? Especially when you start with two characters who may or may not end up in a community with active characters. I have my own thoughts on the subject but I sense that I am starting to ramble so I will leave it at this.

Any thoughts?

[SekoETC]

I remember when I was a newb, my characters were travelling a lot, there was a great urge to see the world. Also things were worth more, a stone hammer was a big investment especially since it took whole two days to build, two days is a long time for a person who doesn't want to settle down.

Of course there weren't any skills when I was a noob, everything was possible. My latest newspawn turned out to be novice in all the skills she tried at first, exept one thing was efficient, one skill that is rather rarely used was skillful. Then later she turned out to be expert in hunting and fighting so that might affect things. But when you make a character, you might have some sort of a mental image of what kind of a character you want, and then the randomness turns your character into something else than planned. So you just gotta adjust to it, maybe it were the best not to have a personality in the beginning?

[tiddy ogg]

Let's face it, it must be the lag killing off any new players at the moment, but apart from that...
Some efforts have been made to ensure new players chars are spawned in fairly populated areas. This is no guarantee they will be spoken to, but it must improve their lot.
I'll admit that I nearly quit, as I didn't know what I was doing, (no wiki then,) and no-one would talk to me, and I don't know what can be done about this. Most of my chars try to look after newspawns, but it gets disheartening when so many then just stand around until they die.

[Black Canyon]

I agree that the lag is a major problem. I find it very frustrating to experience a 50% (at best) successful login rate or to have the page time out every other time my character attempts an action. So I can imagine how a new player feels. I have lately been giving up and doing other things rather than deal with the frustration.

[SekoETC]

My first character spawned in a place with just one other person (as far as I can remember) and a bunch of corpses. I was expecting everything to happen much faster. It's a good thing we get to start several characters so I got to do stuff and see some active people, since my first character was travelling for several days, maybe even years before meeting an active person. But then it got rather interesting.

For me, Cantr was a dynamic game because I was making it dynamic, my characters made plans and rushed out to carry them out without stopping to think about things like death or where to get the next meal or how to protect yourself from bad people or animals. It all comes through learning. And I appriciate people giving food and tools to my newspawns, even a rotten bone knife can be a treasure when you're new.

Big places can be as bad as empty ones, take Brunoi for example, nowadays if a newspawn spawns there, they might be completely ignored for days unless they choose to address an active person directly.

Also if a newbie steals something, they'll most likely be treated just like any other newspawn thief which might include being locked up without being told that you committed a crime and that you'll be released if you work for a certain length of time. For a new player it's a very vague consept that someone could own the things on the ground, why would they toss it away if they want to keep it? So when they pick up things, they're thinking oh great, freebies! And when someone tells them to drop the stuff, they might feel like the person was stealing from them, or "what sense does it make to drop it when someone else is gonna take it anyway?"

In a way it would be good to have some sort of a tag on newbie characters so that others could tell them apart from the suicidal ones played by older players, but then again, it would take all the fun out of pretending to be a newb and testing the patience of the older folks

[sanchez]

The suggestion from the Polish forum about newspawns appearing in their late teens somewhat addresses this, especially if it were done for new players only. That way, crafty 20-somethings could still exploit the ambiguity. These suggestions were referenced by Luk and Seko in this thread recently: http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 8&start=15

I can say my first spawn was a disaster. He was eaten by animals on Burgeo, and it was chance I even tried again. Only through the luck of encountering one of I think tiddy ogg's chars who was very attentive to newspawns did I get interested in the game at all. So, this makes a huge difference.

[Doug R.]

My first character spawned in Kirinn. Everyone slept most of the time, and I was constantly ignored. Instead of growing to hate the game, I just grew to hate the people and the town, and I still carry that hatred of Kirinn with me even though that charry's been dead now since October.

I spawned my second character in response to my frustration with the first, and I spawned in Seatown Forest. Needless to say, after that, I was really hooked.

I think the key is that something needs to happen within the first few days that fulfills the need that made the person join Cantr in the first place. That need will be different for every player. It's a crap-shoot, really. The best thing we can do right now is fix the lag.

I really think a newbie island is a good idea. Second life has a newbie city, and it's critical (I dislike Second Life, but that's off-topic). If we had a well made newbie area that allowed for established players to have "avatars" in to help out the noobs (like second life) it would be good (although it would have to be able to stand alone in case no established players were logged in).

[marol]

Can't you see lag decreased today?

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Uhm.. maybe a little. Still went down about 2pm-ish (GMT -5) as it has been every day, and it's almost time for it to go down again, nearly 3pm-ish now. It wasn't down as much as yesterday or the day before yet, but those were abnormal downtimes (compared to what it normally has been). Maybe it was a little faster before it went down earlier, and it didn't seem to be down as long. I've seen it a lot better some lone days admidst a cluster of horrible days.

[Cdls]

Stop trying to encourage new people to join until at least the lag is fixed. You can tell them all you want about how wonderful the game can be but all the talk wont mean shit unless the game actually works. Sure we all want new people to join, but all that's happening is the game is driving them away and leaving a bad experience with them. Why would they want to come back and try again after that?

Another thing is that the description of the game on the home page really doesn't match the game anymore.

Cantr II is a slow-paced game. Many players only play for a few minutes per character each day and one meeting can take a week to play. The game is designed for players who have more on their agenda then just gaming.

If that were really the case then why haven't things been implemented to improve on that idea? Instead, we are left with having to repair, eat, get fuel, and so on. How can someone that doesn't have a lot of time on their hands possibly want to play a game like this?

[Black Canyon]

Perhaps we should place a message on the sign-up page warning prospective players that we are currently experiencing these server problems?

[kinvoya]

I agree with Doug. I think at this point a newbie island would be very helpful for first time players.

Maybe start with one char on the island and after a week two new chars can spawn just as they do now.

Part of the experience on newbie island should be that they are told how to save and make the most of their minutes. Losing loads of minutes is very frustrating for new players.

[Doug R.]

They have to leave the newbie island eventually, or else it will just turn into any other location in the game. Maybe they start at 19 on the newbie island, and then when they're ready, they enter something that randomly spawns them somewhere else.

[Piscator]

Perhaps it would be a good idea to limit the possible spawning locations for firstspawns to a few well established communities. That way they would have enough people around to help them in their first days.

Another good idea IMO would be include a routine that ensures that the skills of newspawns are balanced. For every low skill should be a high skill in return, or at least the sum of skillpoints (do we have hidden skillpoints?) should be the same for every character. The skills would be still random, but noone would be, in respect of the skills, a total looser.

Perhaps there could be a little tutorial for firstspawns, just some pop-up notes or the like explaining basic game mechanics and the interface when the respective menus are accessed. Basically the same as the wiki, but people wouldn't have to browse for it. I think the least part of firstspawns bother theirselves with reading the wiki.

[chadpants]

I would enjoy having a character devoted to training the characters of newbie players on such a newbie island.